‘Dega, baby.
Yesterday was one of the more bizarre races I’ve seen at Talladega in all my years of watching NASCAR. Everybody rode around at half-throttle trying to save fuel for most of the race, so while there was some good passing and strategy, there wasn’t a ton of actual racing because they were basically just out there trying to make sure they had enough gas to race to the checkered flag.
The result was a race with only two wrecks heading into the final lap, with drivers mostly minding their manners and trying to keep their car in one piece for a shot to win.
But coming to the checkered flag, all bets were off.
Michael McDowell was in the lead trying to hold off a hard-charging Brad Keselowski as they raced to the finish line, but after throwing a big block, Keselowski turned McDowell in front of the field and chaos ensued behind them.
Corey LaJoie crossed the finish line on his side, dozens of cars were caught up in the massive wreck, and at the end of the day Tyler Reddick was able to sneak by for the win. (It was also Michael Jordan’s first time being at the track to see his team, 23XI Racing, take home the checkered flag).
Of course the finish could be chalked up to superspeedway racing, where drafting causes massive packs of cars and one wrong move can cause “The Big One” and take out half the field at any given time. But Kyle Busch apparently thinks the product on the track yesterday was a result of the cars that NASCAR has built.
NASCAR has taken a lot of heat for their Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022 and has put on…well, lackluster races at short tracks. And superspeedways. And road courses. So pretty much everywhere but intermediate ovals.
And Kyle Busch has had enough.
After the race, the driver of the #8 car for Richard Childress Racing, who was caught up in the massive wreck at the finish, took to Twitter to voice his opinion on the current state of the racing:
“Ride in line=finish where u r
TRY to race for win=finish last
I hate these cars!!!”
The former Cup Series champion was clearly frustrated with the fuel saving game that played out for much of the race. Drivers were basically forced to stay in line and save fuel, keeping them stuck back in the field, or risk running out of gas by actually going full throttle and racing for the win.
Not really what you want to see when you’ve got the best drivers in the world out there…
It’s kind of beating a dead horse at this point, but NASCAR has got to make some changes to the package to fix the racing on the track. It’s pretty wild to see cars out there running half-throttle and going 15 mph slower than they could if they were actually trying to race for the win.
But either way, it seems like more and more drivers are finally getting fed up with it and starting to speak out against NASCAR’s current car – including the always-outspoken Kyle Busch.
